A yurt was the meeting space, chipmunks were darting around every which way, wild rabbits checking us out to see what we were up to, in the middle of a Colorado semi-desert, only one other house in sight appearing as a spec at night on a dark mountain landscape. For a month in September 2012, this was yet another classroom on my journey through the Americas, helping to build an experimental regenerative home with a greenhouse as the part of the structure and vaulted earthen dome as the “cherry on top” (more on that later). The nights so quiet, I could hear the distance between the ground and the stars, with the sky so clear, the galaxy was a painting up above that appeared so close you could touch it, which of course it was because we are a part of it. The first night, with tone set by a gentle amount of fungal friends I had crossed paths with earlier in Oregon, was the first time I had ever been in that remote of a space with so few other humans around (there were only two of us at camp this first night), with no man-made sounds except the ones we happen to make preparing dinner or, as Terence McKenna famously said, with tiny mouth noises used for communication. The silence was the most beautiful sound I had heard in a long time, dotted with slight whistles and chirps from various guardians and watchers that called the area home. That month was a time of connection with the outdoors for sure, but it was also a time of beginning to contemplate our individual places in the vastness of things…
